Scissors and slanted fingers
Skeletal trills
Stretched, hung, resembling my pollinator
sliding down my throat, and cut
cut,
cut
and choke on the blood
Thicker than pink or red
and purple and black
beneath my father

Catch me if you can, I'm spread above the earth
I'll catch a morning train so we can figure out what hurts
In a place of dying men
I cry sometimes, but that's all part of it
Yeah, that's all part of it, don't catch yourself

I leave it opened up, but you can put it back just fine
You're a sucker for that sentimental sorcery of mine
Stuck below the surface, I want to love you more
But that's all part of it, I guess, that's all part of it

I don't know what to say, I've done all that I can,
and if it really hurts then you can press your hand against the glass
I'll be there with you first, know you'll never have to wait,
no, you'll never have to be alone

I've been looking at old pictures of rock stars in their prime
such feminine, almost childlike features compared to their current selves
There are some of Bob Dylan playing guitar with Donavan
And one of Lou Reed with his hand pressed against his cheek, sitting at a table with Jagger and Bowie, at Cafe Royal in London
and when I see them I think,
"I want to be young."
but I am young
years younger, in fact

I woke up today at the border of the morning, in that old war bunker, crowded with boxes and medical supplies, missing the asphalt and the tree line
Half dead and unaware, in this undead pharmacy, taking fragments from the shelves
And who's really gonna stop me if there is no one around?
Wasted all of my prayers on all of the obvious things
days spent walking miles to the pawn shop, or the futility of looking for what to take with me

My visions of thin skin are poking at their veins, of which I'm having memories of in unrelenting fashion
and though I'm only 23 my heart feels like a chasm
of mayflower proportion

I think to write you a letter, think fast to find a pencil, but there never is one, so I crumble up the paper
I think to write you a letter, but there never is one
But it'd be cruel not to leave one
So with all the strength I can muster, with the most minimal of treasures that haunt this long abandoned shelter,
I am hardly able to form words, let alone sentences
The crumbled paper giving under my childlike formed fist
And I see my face in Judy Garland's, in the glass, my reflection in a framed picture
my Judy
The last letter
Spilling out from my lips

I am not beautiful yet
I am ugly to the very core
but I will rearrange my bones, if not for this, then for that framed picture
and what it reflected

Rori counted all the boxes lying just down below the stairs
She counted with her young, thin fingers, that seemingly could break from the slightest weight
But as you could tell from all the oranges sitting safe inside those boxes
of projected ghostly leaves and branches
They weren't going anywhere

And Rori wiped some sweat from her forehead
Her crucifix danced with her movements
She reached into a sea of bottled water and helped herself to some
The queen upon a throne of wheat bread and powdered milk
Crackers and the usual canned goods
As a line of people formed before her, there was no more time to ****
Just near the truckload of backpacks of all colors of the rainbow

Rori knew, without a doubt, that this was gonna be the year
She'd go out searching in the mountains, through every crevice for the light snow that fell upon this city
In December of 2007
she was 8 years old that day
But Rori knew, without a doubt, that this was gonna be the year
That it would be back to stay